


a world alone

by villanelle



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Boarding School, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-02
Updated: 2015-08-20
Packaged: 2018-03-15 22:50:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3464951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/villanelle/pseuds/villanelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When she thinks back to her schooldays, to that red brick and white-pillared microcosm of a world, she thinks inevitably of Ymir. Because it just so happens that sometimes, one does meet the right person at the right time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_Fourth Form  
_

 

The idea of it sounds idyllic. Boarding school in the picturesque Northeast. A campus bordered by well-groomed lawns for lacrosse in the spring and snow-blanketed mountains with ski trails in the winter. Her father drops the brochure, a glossy production that mostly features smiling, smartly dressed youths, in her lap and says with a strained tone of cheer, “It’ll be good for you, to be around children your own age again. ”

What Rod Reiss doesn’t say is this: Your mother is gone, and my wife would prefer you to disappear as well. Madam Reiss dislikes the melodrama of having to stain her hands with more drastic actions. She wants simply to forget the evidence of her husband’s infidelity and have it shipped off to an isolated corner of Massachusetts where it can be hidden for at least a few years. Rod Reiss says none of these things to his youngest offspring, but then again, he is a man who has always known exactly which words to include and which to omit. That is why he has begun to adjust his corporate responsibilities in preparation of running for public office in a few months. And for such a prominent man, the idea of relocating his mistress’s child appeals as a conveniently well-timed option.

It’s certainly not the worst fate that could befall a child whom very few want to keep around. The school is a decent institution, perhaps not on the same prestigious tier as her half-sister’s had been, but Historia does not expect to have a life as blessed as Freida’s. Valedictorian at Andover, fresh graduate from Yale, and a soon-to-be scholar at Oxford due to a recently awarded Rhodes. The list of Freida’s accomplishments seemed intimidatingly endless, but the girl herself had been nothing short of motherly since Historia first met her. As for the other Reiss children, well, they had not wanted to see her, and accordingly, she had not yet laid eyes on them, at least not in person.

Thus, on the day Historia sets out for her new school, Freida is the only one who accompanies her to the train station, all the way to the conductor’s elbowside.

“You know you can text me at any time, right?” Freida tells her, squeezing their hands together. “Or email me or write a letter. I love old-fashioned letters! Did I give you my address in England?”

“I think so,” Historia murmurs, rubbing her thumb at the Notes icon on her phone to make sure.

“Okay, well write to me after you settle in? I want to hear all about school and about all the friends you’ll make.”

Historia has her doubts that she’ll make any friends at all, but she dutifully promises to write anyway. On the train, she manages to claim a window seat on the fringe of Freida’s view just as the engines start their smoky rotation. Plopping down hastily on the red cushion, she gestures a last frantic wave through the breath-clouded glass and then she’s alone as the train pulls away from the platform. 

Sitting alone though is nothing new to her.

 

* * *

 

She’s knocked, with emphasis, at least five times, but the door to her assigned dorm room stays shut, regular blasts of 90s pop music seeping through the cracks.

A break in the melody intersects with one of her more insistent knocks, and finally, the door pulls open, revealing a pigtailed girl in black leggings and a green sports bra. A quick scan of Historia and the two suitcases at her side, and the girl calls excitedly over her shoulder, “Looks like our new suitemate is here!”

“Sorry, the common area is an absolute mess. “ The girl swings back to Historia, voice muted to a conspiratorial whisper. “I’ve been trying to get Annie and Hannah to do this dance routine with me, but we keep knocking stuff over. Well, Hannah and I do anyway. Annie may hate dancing, but she’s like a natural at it. Oh, forgot to do introductions! My name’s Mina…and you must be Krista?”

“Yes, Krista Lenz.”  _It’ll be like play-acting_ , her father had told her.  _For right now, it’ll be better if you use your Mama’s name._

Mina leads her inside, and she’s pleasantly surprised at how spacious the dorm is, the couches and coffee table temporarily displaced from their arrangement to make room for a mosaic of yoga mats in front of the tv. On the mats, two other girls glance up from their stretching positions, a petite blonde around Historia’s height and a lankier girl with a sienna-haired ponytail.

“So this is Annie,” Mina announces, gesturing at the blonde. “Our quad has two double rooms. Over there is the one that Annie and I share, and on the other side is your room. You’ll be sharing with Ymir, but she’s practically never around.”

“She’s in Bert’s and Reiner’s room,” Annie piped in.

“Oh yeah, she’s like in a gang with them.”

“It’s not a gang.”

“Okay, fine, clique, posse, whatever,” Mina responds before turning to Historia again. “Annie was always hanging out with them too, but I’ve convinced her that she should hang out with us instead. We’re much more fun than the boys.”

Behind her, Annie gives a visible roll of her eyes. “Are we gonna do this routine or not? I have stuff to do in an hour.”

“Classes haven’t even started yet. What could you possibly have to do?”

“Practice for varsity tryouts in a few days…”

“Ugh, don’t you dare leave me alone on JV! Whatever, let’s do this. Krista, want to join?”

Dancing is in no way Historia’s strong suit either, and she’d planned on unpacking her suitcases before attempting any socializing, but she wants to make friends here, wants to have at least a few people about whom she can write back to Freida.

“Yeah, ok.”

It’s a sort of minor disaster, synchronizing her limbs to the beat of the music and the other girls’ movements, and she tries to focus on mirroring Annie’s fleet-footed steps. Annie looks almost bored as she moves, her expression nowhere near the grins of Mina and Hannah, but her every bend and turn is fluid and flawless, aligned perfectly with those of the dancers on the tv screen.

Their second round going through a jazz remix, Historia loses control of her pivot and stumbles out of orbit, her fall prevented only by a force countering her downwards trajectory. Jerking her head back, she finds her vision at level with what she assumes is a band name, emblazoned on a loose grey muscle tee, the hem of the shirt artfully frayed.

Propping a toned brown arm on her denim-covered hip, the entrant tilts her head, assessing Historia with lowered eyes.

“Oh,” she purrs, “You’re  _tiny_.”

This is how she meets Ymir.

 

* * *

 

In her old school, there had been enough people that Historia could remain relatively anonymous in long stretches of hallway as well as populated classrooms. At St. Sina’s, there are barely more than sixty people in her grade, and ah — here is another adjustment, she is corrected more than once that they are in Fourth Form, not tenth grade.

Amidst sixty people, well, it’s a little harder to shrink into herself and stay under the radar. Her English literature class, all nine members of it, assembles around a polished tiger-oak round table, and everyone swivels their head to peer owlishly at her when the instructor announces that they have a new student.

Flushed under their inspection, Historia mumbles her name, and the teacher bids her, “Speak up, dear, and enunciate. Your name is not a question.”

She’s new though, and her name does in fact come out like a question when other people use it. Everyone else, Historia senses, seems to be already acquainted with each other. Later, at the dining hall table, Mina explains, “Most of us have gone to St. Sina since primary school, and it’s pretty rare that we get a Fourth Form transfer. It’s also kinda rare to not know someone’s name because we’ve all been here so long.”

And as Mina demonstrates, everyone knows not only each other’s name but their respective background as well.

“That boy at the corner table, his name is Eren Jaeger. His father’s an internationally-renowned medical researcher, and their family used to travel all over the world because Dr. Jaeger was working with the WHO. Now, his dad’s down in Atlanta, trying to cure Ebola or something at CDC, and I think he’s totally forgotten that he has a son.”

“We get a lot of kids here whose parents are like that,” Hannah adds in a whisper, and Historia just nods, fingers shredding her napkin under the table.

“Let’s see, who else is interesting…,” Mina ponders, scoping the entire student body. “Oooh, you see Marco Bodt over by the salad bar? He’s a West Coast boy. His mom is a Hollywood talent agent, and you can sometimes spot her in paparazzi shots. Oh, and I would introduce Jean Kirschstein to you, but he’ll make sure that you know who he is.”

Twenty names later, Historia hardly recalls any of the juicier details on her new classmates, but the main impression she gets is that everyone else belongs. They’ve worn the same uniform, played on the same sports teams, and are all beginning to compare, swap, or steal their PSAT tutors.

_What about you?_  her classmates ask.  _Where are you from? What do your parents do? Any plans for the weekend? For college? For the future?_

_Who are you_ , their eyes all seem to probe at her.

A few days into the semester, she comes across a newspaper in the common area and thumbs listlessly through it in search of the Arts section before halting at Politics instead. Featured in pixelated greyscale are her father and several other members of the Reiss family. The picture’s caption, she notes, labels Rod Reiss as the father of five. Five, not six.

She tosses the paper into a recycling bin and devotes the rest of the night to conjugating neat rows of French verbs.

_Who are you?_

In the presence of her peers, Historia feels like an imposter.

 

* * *

 

Mina is right. Ymir is hardly ever around in the dorms, her absence sporadically forewarned with a vague mutter that she has stuff to do. Sometimes, she disappears on her own, and sometimes it’s through summons.

On repeated occasions, it starts with Reiner Braun popping his head into their dorm, prompting Annie to nail him in the ear with a sneaker as a forceful reminder to knock. In the intervals between Reiner’s visits, other classmates will show up, tentatively inquiring and sometimes mentioning that they brought cash this time.

“Are you selling something?” Historia asks her roommate before lights-out one night, and Mina, still awake in the common area, says loudly, “Oh yeah, Ymir should get a big ol’ prize for her entrepreneurial endeavors.”

“I like to help people out when I can,” Ymir shoots back at equal volume. “And it’s lights-out in five so can you get off the computer and go to bed? I’m beyond sure that Hannah and Franz have moved past Facebook official status. No need to investigate further.”

In their quad, Ymir is clearly the one who doesn’t feel obligated to socialize. Baking cookies for Friday night check-in? Ymir has algebra homework to do, even though it won’t be actually due until Monday. Watching a moderately funny rom-com that Mina picked out? Barf, Ymir fake-gags at Historia; she’d rather catch the latest Knicks game with some of the guys.

And yet, Ymir always manifests whenever Historia needs someone.

Their weekday mornings begin with Chapel, and every student has to file into the Gothic-Revival church by 8 am promptly. She’s been at school for a couple of weeks now, but Historia finds herself still inept at tying a proper Prince Albert knot, her attention nervously distracted by the clock as her fingers slip again and again on the diagonally striped cloth.

With a huff, Ymir stalks over and grasps both of her hands, subduing their anxious flutter. “Geez, princess, lemme just do it for you, okay?”

Pink with embarrassment, Historia nods and silently watches as Ymir’s long, cleverer fingers pull one end of the tie over the other before looping it once, twice, with ease and precision.

“My old school wasn’t like this one,” Historia blurts out, and it sounds like a confession. “We just wore whatever we wanted, and no one ever wore stuff like this, ties or blazers or —”

“Kilts,” Ymir inserts helpfully, the bony part of her index knuckle bumping the indent at Historia’s throat. “Sound the sirens, you went to public school.”

Lightly, she flicks the rounded tip of Historia’s nose. “You’ll go cross-eyed if you keep staring at my fingers like that. Just practice a few times, and you’ll get the hang of it. It’s like learning shoelaces back in kindergarten.” Withdrawing her hands, Ymir adjusts her own necktie and clears her throat. “Relax. Not all of us came here with loaded pockets. Why else do you think I’m running a black market from our dorm room?”

“Oh.” Historia stares over at Ymir’s side of the room, at the suitcases that haven’t been unpacked yet and that probably aren’t holding backup winter clothing. “Um, so are there drugs in there?”

“Hell no,” Ymir laughs. “I’m not looking to be expelled for handing out Molly to fifteen year olds. It’s just cigs and beer. Mostly for people like Jean Kirschstein, whose European-born ass isn’t used to it being so difficult to grab a smoke. Why? You want something?”

“Oh, no, not me. I just wanted to know that’s all.”

Ymir’s expression turns serious, her tone apologetic. “Sorry, this probably isn’t something you wanted to find out about your roommate.”

“Well, I did want to get to know you better…”

“Yeah, but not to discover your roommate’s involved in stuff like this, right?” Chewing on her freshly berry-glossed bottom lip, Ymir focuses her eyes on the suitcases too, her posture suddenly much more rigid than her usual leaning slouch. “It’s not something I’d do if I had better options. This school though, did you know that tuition plus boarding here costs more than 50k each year?”

Historia didn’t actually; the brochure had not mentioned that nor had her father.

“I get some financial aid, and scholarship money. Get a nice little check in the mail every month from this program that basically sifts through immigrant families in the boroughs and selects a fraction to sponsor at prep schools. You know, for “diversity” purposes.”

Darting her gaze down at her shoes and then more steadily at Ymir, Historia responds quietly, “You don’t have to explain the uh - black market thing to me. You really don’t have to. I don’t mind.” It’s not like she can judge anyone else for how they got here.

“Yeah, but if anyone ever shows up and gives you trouble about any of this, you tell them it’s me, okay? It’s all me.”

Shrugging on their coats, they head out together, and for the first time, Ymir sits next to her during Chapel, the skin of her knee grazing Historia’s as they take their seats in the pews.

 

* * *

 

Boarding school is different in various ways. For one thing, they require every student to participate in athletics each semester, and that means Historia is compelled to enlist in a series of bruising endeavors. The third time she near-bludgeons a teammate in the nose with her field hockey stick, Ymir tugs on her jersey sleeve and mutters to her to stay on the field as everyone else trails off.

“I’m sorry,” Historia says automatically, looking up at her roommate.

“For what?”

“You kept passing the ball to me, and I kept losing control of the play. I just — I’m not very good when people rush at me like that.”

Hands resting on the butt of her own stick, Ymir prompts, “You get scared?”

“Well, I’m smaller than everyone else on the team.”

Ymir chuckles at that. “Yeah, Annie’s probably relieved that you arrived. You see how she moves though, right? She’s about your height, and she’s an absolute monster out on the turf. Do you know how to sweep pass?”

“I flatten the knob end like this, don’t I?” Historia bends slightly at the knees, wrists swiveling the stick under Ymir’s careful supervision.

“Yeah, and you remember the slap shot demo yesterday? Well, if you watch Annie a bit, she’s really good at kinda disguising her sweeps and then shooting. Oh, and uh about your stance — get low.”

“Like this?”

“Lower. And stick your butt out more.”

“Wait what?”

Ymir laughs, and Historia winces instinctively, but then her roommate grins at her in a way that doesn’t resemble the mocking smirks of her childhood.

“Sorry Krista, couldn’t resist ‘cause you’re so cute. The first time you adjusted was good though. It’ll be useful for adding more power to your drives. Now, come on, I’ll pass to you, and you try scoring, got it?”

“And when I miss?”

“ _If_ you miss, who cares? There’s no one else watching.”

“Just you.”

“Just me, and I already know you’re awesome so don’t worry about needing to impress me. Now, go on princess and show me whatcha got.”

 

* * *

 

Ymir coaches her persistently after that, hauling her to practice regardless of whether the turf is dewy-morning wet or midday dry.   


 

 

Spotting Ymir’s signal to pass, Historia admits to herself that she may not hate field hockey so much anymore.

 

* * *

 

On Saturdays, Historia trudges her slippered feet to the mailroom and can usually expect to find a waiting postcard from Freida, the addresses denoting different origins all over the UK. The latest missive arrives from a place called Skye, the text mostly consisting of an update on her sister’s hiking adventures in the Scottish Highlands, but near the end of the cramped script is a question:  _So, any cute boys at school?_

Pen frozen in reply, Historia thinks of the boys in her classes. Reiner Braun, who’s bulked up so much this season that a button popped off his sweater vest the other day, resulting in a slew of steroid jokes from Jean. Bertholdt Hoover, who’s always at Reiner’s side and whose towering height makes her feel like a child. She giggles a little at the mental image of kissing someone like Bertholdt; she’d have to climb him like a tree.

And for some reason, her mind wanders.

To other taller people.

To Ymir.

To Ymir, whose legs are long, lean and strong in their team uniform’s black shorts, whose knees look good lined up against her own when they’re resting and stretching on the grass.

The day earlier, they had played a JV game against a rival school. Ymir had dribbled to her, and instinctively, like her arm was made to do nothing else, Historia had glided the stick into a sweeping shot that popped the ball past the goalie’s left ankle.

The other girls had screamed and hugged her, but what left an imprint on her skin was the memory of Ymir’s smile, not mischievous or teasing as it usually was, but simply a full curve of warm recognition.

Staring down at the postcard again, Historia grabs a fresh sheaf of paper and writes in reply:

_No. No boys._

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

_  
Fifth Form_

Sophomore year passed slowly at first, and then, like an hourglass overturned, it elapsed, dream-like, into the past. Historia heads back to campus with a lighter heart for her junior year, and a substantial part of this more buoyant outlook is due to their unchanged dorm assignment, one half of the suite consisting of Mina and Annie still, and the other sheltering Ymir and herself again.

Everyone’s more visibly stressed this year, juggling club activities and test prep in between AP classes and other commitments that will decorate their upcoming college applications. Historia feels the pressure too of course, but progressively, she discovers that not all of the changes are bad. Ymir is around much more often, and her suitcases are packed this time with tea leaves rather than campus-banned contraband. A few times a week, they’ll stand side by side in the dormitory kitchen, wafting the fresh scent of spearmint into the surrounding air as they brew Moroccan green tea into small glasses before carrying their prepared tray to the common area and sitting down to review French grammar rules inscribed on index cards.

It’s flustering, at the outset, to practice French with Ymir, who utters conversational phrases so fluidly sometimes that Historia registers no junctures between the words and has to ask her to repeat them at a slower pace. Reading French, making sense of the tenses and genders arranged in front of her, sets Historia more at ease, whereas her mind feels as blank as a clean whiteboard whenever she opens her mouth to start speaking it.

What she gradually learns though is that Ymir mocks a lot of things -- Bertholdt Hoover’s need to constantly wear two undershirts, Eren Jaeger’s penchant for rip-off Tiffany key necklaces -- but she never makes fun of people’s accents, never trades glances and suppressed smirks as some others do at Sasha Braus’s midwestern twang.

Around Ymir, Historia begins allowing her own voice to grow stronger.

 

* * *

 

“So are you and Ymir best friends now?” Mina asks her during biology lab one day, inquisitive eyes blinking at her through a scratched-up pair of goggle lens.

Historia isn’t sure if she can say yes. It’s yes on her part, she thinks, but what if Ymir considers her only a good friend, not a best friend?

“We’re much closer than we were last year,” is what she settles for finally. “I used to feel that Ymir didn’t even like me when we first met. Reiner and Bertholdt are probably still closer to her than I am though.”

It’s a strange observation, but Historia notices that Mina seems to frown at the mention of Bertholdt’s name. The black-haired girl unclamps their buret from its ring stand with more force than necessary and continues after a pause, “But you liked Ymir from the beginning right?”

Chuckling awkwardly, Historia plucks at the throat of her sweater, wishing she’d worn something lighter than a turtleneck. “Mina, I’m starting to feel interrogated here. What’s this about?”

Mina doesn’t answer at first, just turns off their Bunsen burner and pulls away the goggles from around her head.

“Did you know that Bert asked Annie to winter formal?”

Taken aback, Historia shakes her head. Bert seemed too shy to ask anyone to a dance, let alone Annie Leonhardt whose rejections had famously made more than one boy cry.

“Well, he did, and she said yes, and that’s great I suppose -- that Bert finally mustered enough courage to ask unlike some other people.”

A creeping sense of understanding begins to dawn on Historia. “Oh, Mina, I didn’t know that you --”

“Yeah, no one did. That’s my point.” Mina faces her fully, and Historia wonders if the cloudy goggles had been hiding the reddishness around Mina’s eyes all this time. Inhaling deeply, as if she’d just escaped a vacuum, Mina composes herself and says firmly, “I don’t want to assume anything about other people’s feelings. Maybe I’m just projecting onto you too much. But what I’m trying to say is that if you like someone, don’t wait forever to tell them.”

The memory of last night’s mint tea prickles Historia’s tongue.

_“Come on,” Ymir encourages her, her upper body casting a shadow and covering up the index cards as she leans across the table. “Let’s forget the textbook responses for tonight. Just babble whatever you want to me, and I’ll respond. That’s the only way we can have a real conversation.”_

“Thanks Mina, I won’t.”

 

* * *

 

Easier said than done of course.

From the wall outside her English class, Historia snatches a copy of the winter formal poster and tapes it to her desk like a calendar. For three weeks in a row though, she chickens out, voice sputtering when she returns to their dorm room in the evenings and throat feeling incredibly clogged at the thought of confronting Ymir. Was it supposed to be a confrontation? Confessions in the movies seemed to come about with such a softer connotation, mood lighting and all that. In contrast, in real life, Historia wonders if she will ever find the right time and the right words.

Everything else is a distraction but a sort-of welcome distraction. Historia had picked up drama club as a random elective halfway through last year, and the script of _Tartuffe_ had initially read like a thirty-page foreign language dictionary to her, but she had received callback after callback. This year, the club unanimously agrees on casting her as Cosette in _Les Mis_ , and rehearsals do a wonderful job of keeping her preoccupied so that she’s coming home at nine or ten or sometimes, exhaustingly at eleven p.m.

“You missed dinner again,” Ymir remarks one night when Historia enters their room, face still powdered in full makeup. Her roommate disappears into the common area for a moment and then comes back with a colorfully loaded plate. “Saved you some salad and pizza. And the last slice of lemon tart. Don’t worry, I kept it away from the savories. You like that stuff, right?”

Perhaps, it’s the remnants of courage from the stage, or the built-up anticipation from having suppressed her words for so long, or the feeling that right now is the right moment because she has heels on and thus no need to humiliate herself by asking Ymir to bend down, but Historia takes the plate and sets it down without looking at it.

“Thank you, I do like all of those things,” she says, and _oh_ , it’s like she can hear her heartbeat in her ears as she stares, chin angled up, at Ymir who looks back with confusion.

“Well, are you going to eat any of that?”

“In a minute. Maybe. I just -- “ Her shoes are half a size too big on her elfin feet so Historia slides forward a little on her soles and raises herself to tiptoe hoveringly.

“I just -- want to tell you that I like you. More than anything or anyone else here, I like you.”

She closes her eyes before she’s even finished the sentence and kisses Ymir....on the chin.

Stumbling back in realization, Historia trips on her backpedaling heels, and it’s like the first time they met because Ymir stops her from falling, wrapping an arm around her and pulling her close.

Ymir stops her from falling and kisses her back instead. Kisses her with such fierceness that Historia dimly thinks back to her preceding bumping of lips as a kittenish attempt in comparison.

This, this fusing of hungry mouth to her yearning one is much, so much, better.

Historia once asked for her mother’s kiss, and the response was a lacquered slap to the cheek.

She has not dared to seek another person’s affection in years, and Ymir’s kiss is sweet relief to the uncertainty that has plagued her heart for weeks, the endearment of lips as comforting as a salve that wipes away all the doubts in its wake.

With expanding lungs and hearts, they part.

“Oh, so does that mean -- ?”

“Yes, _yes_.”

 

* * *

 

 _Yes_ means that they kiss a lot after that.

And that they drag their comforters to blanket their selves in one bed.

And that Historia now has a favorite when it comes to Ymir’s bra collection, even though most of it is black.

“The plain black one, without the lace,” she tells Ymir. “Definitely that one.”

Huffing, Ymir unhooks said bra and lets it hang from one finger. “I mean, does it matter when it’s going to come off at some point anyway?”

It does matter, sometimes.

Sometimes, like when Ymir bends forward, bringing her torso between the cradle of Historia’s legs. Historia’s half-sure that Ymir’s feet are hanging off the edge of the bed, but what she’s more cognizant of is that the smooth, rounded underside of Ymir’s bra comes to align against her own breasts, gradually grazing her bared nipple with their soft slide, again and again.

 _Yes_ , she thinks with a sigh, she prefers the bras without the lace.

And she likes it best when there’s no barrier at all, just the tantalizing rub of hardened nubs against her own aching peaks, their bodies bearing down on each other, oscillating the joining of mouth to mouth and belly to belly. She likes how Ymir’s breath grows ragged for air in the pocket of heat created between them, how she can feel Ymir’s fingers finally clench tighter onto her hips to drag her even closer.

She likes so much about this, about just _being_ with Ymir.

She’s not prepared at all for it to end.

 

* * *

 

“Papa’s argument about not enough room on the stupid boat is definitely bullshit.”

Indignation pervades Freida’s voice, discernible even through the phone. “I haven’t been on the damn thing yet, but I told him that if you come with us, you could just sleep in my cabin. His other excuse is that he doesn’t want to upset Mother anymore. God, I’m so sorry he keeps doing wrong by you.”

This year, the Reiss children are going with their parents on a cruise, their holiday plans mostly consolidated around testing out their father’s new yacht against a backdrop of blue sky and balmy weather along the Dalmatian coast. As was the case last year, Historia is uninvited.

Freida had railed about a similar injustice last year. Historia is not so upset though. At least, Rod approved her spending Christmas break at Ymir’s home, and already, she’s looking forward to taking the train from Ymir’s apartment into New York City so that they can check out the tree at Rockefeller Center and maybe glide on ice skates around the rink at Bryant Park.

“I don’t mind,” she discloses to her half-sister, smiling reassuringly at Ymir whose brows are arched with concern at the raised voices coming from the phone.

“Really, Freida, it’s not a big deal to me. Just send me a postcard from Croatia, and I’ll see you when you get back.”

 

* * *

 

She sees it on the news first.

In Ymir’s kitchen, they’re preparing to set out for a day of winter adventures, and Ymir turns on the television so that they can listen to the morning forecast as they eat breakfast. Historia doesn’t even initially heed the anchor’s announcements, her attention focused on stirring her oatmeal to achieve the right consistency, but then her ears tune into the word “Croatia” and she swivels to look at the tv just as the screen switches from the reporters to an actual, onsite interview with the coastguards leading the investigation.

Their faces are tight-lipped and grim upon being asked about the survivors.

“Krista? Yo, earth to Krista! That’s hot, you’re going to hurt yourself!”

Dazedly, Historia staggers, her back hitting the counter as she carelessly puts down the bowl, boiled water sloshing over its sides. Her hands reach up to cover her ears, fingers scrabbling against her skull like she used to do when she was a child and her mother seemed to be perpetually screaming, and she’s not sure whether it’s the room or her body tilting on a qualmish axis until Ymir stabilizes her tightly with a hug.

“What is it? What’s wrong, Krista?” Ymir whispers, lips pressed against her hairline.

 _Imposter_ , her mother’s voice accuses from the shadows. 

Historia pushes away the taller girl’s embrace, and the sound that rips out of her throat is a hysterical mutation between a laugh and a sob.

“My name isn’t Krista. It’s Historia. Historia Reiss.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> my thanks to Lorde for providing the titular inspiration


End file.
